A new training program in developing cultural intelligence can also improve innovative work behavior and resilience: A longitudinal pilot study of graduate students and professional employees

The ever-increasing globalization and workforce diversity in today's business environment present ongoing challenges for organizational leaders and employees who wish to function effectively in cross-cultural settings. Reliance on knowledge of cultural values frameworks alone has been insufficient to adequately equip workers to operate in global and/or culturally-diverse contexts. This paper introduces a new cultural intelligence training program that combines the knowledge or cognitive aspect with meta-cognitive, motivational and behavioral aspects. It follows a pedagogical approach that balances traditional and experiential methods, and includes a number of unique elements, such as mindfulness and authentic leadership topics. A longitudinal pilot study was designed to test the effectiveness of this new training program with two groups of participants: MBA students from a university in California, United States, and Human Resource professionals from an energy company in Saskatchewan, Canada. Results from the pretest-posttest data analysis confirmed that while participants' cultural intelligence capabilities significantly increased after the training program, it also revealed significant improvements in participants' innovative work behavior for both groups, and resilience was significantly increased for the MBA students. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.